It seems clear from that article that McGarity et al need to be looking into how to invest that massive surplus into initiatives that would improve revenue. How the hell does Arkansas produce more revenue than UGA?

They don’t. All athletic departments use some interesting accounting to show revenue and expenses where they want to. For example, our athletic department pays the school $1.5 million annually in rent plus $4 million more in gifts. So, we give the school $5.5 million a year, but can only squeeze the pennies enough to spend $2.2 million on facilities.

“Long, long, long before I arrived on the scene, there has been tremendous budget adherence here.” So for years football has been a guaranteed multimillion line item on the university’s P&L sheet. After the General Assembly started cutting university funding in 2003/4, it’s become more important.

That’s fine. What I think bothers people here is that we don’t think increasing football spending will affect that. We see it as an investment: put more money in, attract better athletes, generate more hype, win more games, make more money, etc. McGarity sees only the costs. That means he doesn’t think there’ll be a return on increased football spending. Or thinks that it’s more likely we turn into Tennessee than Alabama. This is funny, because *McGarity* would be the man overseeing any increased outlays.

If we really want to pinch pennies, why not drastically reduce all the lab fees from those random drug tests? ….

The reserves are too large as a percentage of the overall budget. More of that needs to be put to productive uses that generates a positive return. Invest more in upgraded facilities and coaching to produce more winning programs and the revenue will also increase.

And here, we’ve hit upon why UGA won’t get the hottest name out there for HC in baseball. We’ll get the 4th or 5th guy on the list. Just like last time. Let’s hope it works out as well as it did before.

Our baseball stadium should at least resemble a Double A field, if not a Triple A field; I think you’d find that there are Single A stadiums which are built better.

I think the Stegman renovations added a lot of life/spark to the building, as did the basketball extension added on; however, the trend in these stadium is toward luxury boxes. Athens doesn’t have the corporate/legal presence like an Alabama or Missouri does, being a small town, but if our basketball program ever turns a corner, that will be something needed to be addressed (See SC’s; even though they have a tough time filling it up, you can’t say it is because of their building: http://www.gamecocksonline.com/facilities/colonial-life-arena.html)

Athens may be slightly larger in size, but the economics/business ratio would not support the type of events Columbia’s Colonial Life Arena hosts… Look at their event lineup, it is much more comparable to what the Gwinnett Arena, or even Phillips, hosts than anything Athens could aspire to.

We all know how economically behind Athens in the state as well as nationally; there simply is not a large enough base of large businesses and white collar professionals in the city to support numerous luxury boxes at a stadium. For example, Mizzou’s basketball stadium seats 15k and has 35 luxury boxes, but is in a city where over half of its residents have a bachelor’s, and over a quarter have a Masters degree.

Maybe the influx of Caterpillar and associated suppliers changes the local Athens dynamics, but I dunno… I may have to write up an article on basketball and baseball facilities in the near future

Point taken and I agree. I was mainly just referring to labeling Athens a small town…but I was wrong b/c there’s more to the big town/small town labels than just population, as you pointed out. Businesses/economics make a big difference.

Today’s revenue distribution announcement from the SEC exposes UGA’s statement to be the pure BS that it is. Total revenue distributed to the SEC schools crossed the $300M mark for the first time. It was $219.9M just two years ago.

Quote Of The Day

“I’m thrilled for this day to get here, and I’m excited to find out how a lot of these new guys learn. These practices are not easy, and the idea is to create adversity for your team and find out who your leaders are.” — Kirby Smart, Chattanooga Times Free Press, 8/1/17